


a voice from out the future cries, “on! on!”

by endofadream



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, and a little bit of internal angst, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1858611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofadream/pseuds/endofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sunlight coming in through the window shines red through Mickey’s eyelids. Ian is a hot presence next to him, stupidly long limbs stretched and sweaty and invasive, and Mickey would tell him to move the fuck out of his space if he wasn’t still sated and thrumming from orgasm, and if some girly part of him didn’t love the feeling of Ian’s body pressed against his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a voice from out the future cries, “on! on!”

Summer is sticky-hot oppressive, the air stagnant and still like a swamp. The wind, when it blows, is hot, gritty, smoggy. Inside it’s even hotter, windows creaked and cracked on their crumbling, splintered frames, but no one in the Milkovich household can be fucked to fix the ancient air conditioner that had finally spluttered out last summer.

The sunlight coming in through the window shines red through Mickey’s eyelids. Ian is a hot presence next to him, stupidly long limbs stretched and sweaty and invasive, and Mickey would tell him to move the fuck out of his space if he wasn’t still sated and thrumming from orgasm, and if some girly part of him didn’t love the feeling of Ian’s body pressed against his own.

Like this he doesn’t care, just wants to hold onto this feeling for as long as possible. A lifetime of hurt has taught him that good things don’t last forever, at least not for him, even though this good thing has been around unsteadily for over three years now.

It’s almost too quiet for once, just the periodic rumble of the L on its tracks and their own breathing. It presses in on Mickey’s ears, makes him tense and skittish—nothing good ever comes out of silence because there’s never a good quiet, just the calm before the inevitable storm when everything goes still and too-calm—but one squeeze of Ian’s arm around his torso has Mickey relaxing slightly, the rigidness slowly bleeding out of his bones.

He doesn’t— _isn’t_ supposed to allow himself to get this close to someone else. Someone that’s a boy. Someone that isn’t family. But, then again, he’s been considering Ian family for a lot longer than he’d like to admit. And Ian makes him feel safe, or at least an approximation of safe, because Mickey only knows fear and hatred and anger and jealousy. There’s no room in his vernacular for words like safe and love and _let’s do this, let’s run away together and forget our shitty lives here_.

People like Mickey aren’t allowed to better themselves; people like him, they’re fucked for life.

Mickey opens his eyes. Ian is abnormally quiet, but sometimes he gets like this now because of his new medication. The silence isn’t bad, it’s just there, and it makes Mickey antsy.

He doesn’t allow himself a lot of thought when he reaches for Ian’s hand on his chest and threads their fingers together. He grips a little tighter than is probably normal. It’s been difficult getting used to doing the shit like holding hands and kissing in public where it’s safe, but Mickey—he’s fucking trying.

Ian hums out a contented sigh, presses his lips, dry and brief, against Mickey’s neck. His fingers flex in Mickey’s, and he squeezes before pulling back slightly to run his fingers lightly up the side of Mickey’s, letting the rough pads of his fingertips dance and stroke absently. And Mickey watches, almost mesmerized, feels warmth bubbling up in his chest and spreading like fire across his body in a way that’s completely irrelevant to the heat.

“Do you ever think about the future?” Ian asks suddenly. His voice is startling as it shatters the silence, and for a moment Mickey is discombobulated, trying to shake himself out of the warm, peaceful place the steady movements of Ian’s fingers playing with his had left him.

He scoffs. “What future?”

“You can’t still think that after everything that’s happened.”

_Try me_ is sharp and bitter on Mickey’s tongue, loaded and ready to be shot out with the ease that he handles a gun, but he bites it back, heaves a deep sigh instead. He drags his fingers against Ian’s, ignores the urge to cover himself up with the flimsy blanket pushed to the end of the bed. “Look,” he finally says, firm but gentle in that way he only ever is with Ian and sometimes Mandy, “what the fuck do you want me to say, man? That we can just, what, leave the southside? Leave Chicago?”

Ian lifts his head up, meets Mickey’s gaze, and there’s fire in his eyes to rival the way the bright afternoon sun halos around his hair and sets it aglow. “What’s stopping us?” he challenges in that way that he has.

Mickey tries to pull his hand away, face suddenly heating up, and he can’t look at Ian, has to look down at the pale lines of his own torso and the way that they seem to blend into the sheets. Sometimes Ian—starry-eyed, big-dreams Ian—just doesn’t see the gritty reality of life, of _Mickey’s_ life. He chooses to ignore the things that he doesn’t like, sometimes, ignores the yellowing hurt of bruises in favor of petty small-talk like it’ll make the memories go away, and then tries to hide it in anger, in goading, when it doesn’t work out that way.

Growing up in the southside, you have to have your own ways of dealing with the shit life throws at you. Mickey knows that his lies in punches and kicks, in wiping away the sting of tears and pretending like he isn’t smashing his heart in the process and watching its blood splatter onto the pavement and arc up into the air, too.

So much has happened in the last few years, and sometimes Mickey blames himself for dragging Ian down with him. He can’t deny that he played the starring role in the reason why Ian even left in the first place, can’t deny that, if he hadn’t been such a _pussy_ , Ian would’ve been home when the break happened, would’ve gotten the help he’d needed right away instead of riding the unsteady wave of psychosis for as long as he had. He would’ve never had his depressive episode. Mickey wouldn’t have the memories of watching Ian get felt up and fed drugs by creepy, closeted old fucks.

“You can’t say that you haven’t changed in the last three years,” Ian’s saying, and Mickey turns to look at him, takes in the narrowness of his green eyes, the set of his jaw. “I was depressed, Mick, not absent; I know what you did. Three years ago you would’ve rather got shot than admit that you weren’t gonna let me go or that you actually cared about me. If I had asked you to suck my dick you would’ve kicked my ass and run.”

There’s a trace of bitterness in his voice, and Mickey can’t help but flinch, biting his lip and looking away. Unconsciously his hand tightens on Ian’s. He knows that it wasn’t Ian’s fault, knows that it was the disease talking. Even if he hadn’t known what it was he’d _known_. He could never be mad at Ian for that.

Mickey doesn’t know what to say. He wants to do it, wants to add _let’s do this, let’s run away_ to his vocabulary, but for as strong as he appears to be he’s equal parts terrified. He can run as far away from the southside as he wants, but as long as his father’s still alive he’s never going to feel safe. And he doesn’t want to drag Ian into that even though he’s more or less, at this point, neck-deep in it.

For his entire life, Mickey’s been a protector. He’s protected Mandy from skeevy, asshole pervs; protected her from the rain of his father’s fists, the reality of their mother’s addiction when they were kids and she’d pass out, vomit in her hair and on the floor, on the couch; and he protects himself, protects his heart, because even if his skin is split, is bruised and bleeding, even if his ribs are cracked and his collarbone is broken from his dad’s boot, no one, no fucking one, will ever break his heart.

Finally, he heaves a sigh, closes his eyes and rolls onto his side. When he opens them he stares at Ian’s face, appreciates the raw open honesty of it, the way that Ian never hides anything, always is unafraid to let his emotions shine through. Mickey’s been through hell and back for this kid, has done things he’d never even let himself think about before. He’s not an idiot; he knows what this is, what love is and how it’s directly related to trust. He trusts a grand total of two people in his life, and so far Ian’s the one that’s weaseled his way in the furthest.

Mickey doesn’t stop himself when he gets the urge to reach out and stroke over Ian’s hair, down the side of his face, to cup his jaw. He blinks, but he doesn’t look away. He’s hyperaware of everywhere that they’re touching, of the fact that their hands are still intertwined and trapped between their bodies.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” is the first thing that he says, and he can feel Ian’s smile at the same time that he can see it. “And I hate you sometimes.”

“But you love me, too.”

Mickey sets his jaw, turns his head slightly to the side and closes his eyes. No matter what he feels inside, no matter what he actually does, he’s always going to have a hard time saying this, and Ian knows it. But in the next moment Ian’s hand is closing over Mickey’s wrist and he’s saying, “You don’t have to say anything—”

Mickey’s already shaking his head, saying, “I know. I’m just…” And he doesn’t continue, just sucks in a deep breath.

Instead, he closes his eyes, tries to think of the word future and what it holds for him. It’s confusing, and it’s muddled, mostly because Mickey’s never actively tried to think about what he’s going to do with the rest of his life, and especially not since Ian became a huge part of it. He’s never wanted to travel, has never really wanted to do much of anything.

After another moment or two he opens his eyes again, blinks and leans in to press his lips briefly to Ian’s. When they part he says, stilted and hesitant, “I see you. In my future,” he clarifies. “Always bein’ a fuckin’ annoying asshole and bothering me when I just want to enjoy the fucking afterglow of some really good sex.”

And Ian laughs, that loud, full-bellied one of his, and it makes Mickey’s heart flutter, makes him laugh, too, and kiss Ian because he can, because maybe, now, he has something to look forward to.


End file.
